In honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month, I am posting the introduction to the book Jenni and I wrote about life with John Michael, entitled Hidden Graces. Now 22 years-old, John Michael has become my “professor of love”—he is a gift I could never have imagined or deserved. He is beautiful in every way, and the world is blessed to have him in it. “Whatever did not fit in with my plandid lie within the plan of God.”-St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Olympic athletes are blessed with a unique set of gifts, both physical and mental. To be the best in the world at events that demand cat-like agility, Herculean-strength, marathon-endurance, and decades of machine-like discipline is worthy of respect. But what if you combine all of these qualities with the empathy of a saint? You get Piotr Malachowski.

The Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing, China is believed to be the most common location in the world for a suicide to occur. So it is there that 48 year-old Chen Si heads every weekend, to try and save lives. This is not his job, but it is his vocation.

Six weeks after being assigned as the priest to Coventry Cathedral in the West Midlands of England, 33 year-old Andrew White began experiencing balance and eye sight problems. He was hospitalized, and on the same day that his second child was born, Fr. White received the news that he had multiple sclerosis. So, he did what any human being would do---head for war- torn Iraq to serve as a pastor, a peace-maker, and a leader of inter-religious dialogue.

When asked how the Threshold Choir came about, Kate Munger first recalled a happy childhood, where her loving mother would often sing lullabies to her and her four siblings each night at bedtime, and to campfire songs with her fellow Girl Scouts as an eight year-old. But as its name reveals, the Threshold Choir is about more than happy times. And Kate remembers facing down her own fears by singing for the first time at the bedside of a dear friend who was dying of AIDS. That was in 1990.

Father Christian de Cherge was the Prior of the Monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, and his tragic martyrdom was presented in the movie Of Gods and Men. But he is a hero for how he lived, not how he died. Born into a French military family, Christian first met Islam when he was five and his family was stationed in Algeria. He was moved by the prayer life of the Muslims around him, and his mother taught him to respect their search for God.